KEY POINTS

  • After weeks of pushing an election fraud narrative, Fox News abruptly dropped Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani
  • The timing matches up with the arrival of legal notices from the companies they allegedly stole the election
  • Giuliani and Powell now face lawsuits and disbarment, with few allies

Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, once staples of Fox News, abruptly disappeared from the airways after Fox received legal warnings for their disinformation. Now the pair are embroiled in legal battles and political strife as former allies turn on them.

Powell and Giuliani spent months pushing Donald Trump’s election fraud narrative with cable network Fox News as one of their most frequent outlets. Right up until Dec. 10, Powell was welcomed onto Maria Bartiromo's shows with the promise of “groundbreaking new evidence” of a “cyber Pearl Harbor.”

It was around that time, however, that Fox started receiving legal notices.

The voting companies that Powell and Giuliani’s “Kraken” accused of stealing the presidential election weren’t about to take the allegations sitting down, and they sent a wave of legal threats to those involved.

On Dec. 10 an attorney for Smartmatic sent Fox a letter accusing them of “[publishing] and [republishing] dozens of false and misleading statements regarding Smartmatic,” demanding an apology and retraction of the false information.

Powell never returned to the network, and Giuliani made a final appearance two days later before vanishing. Lou Dobbs also aired a clarification segment on the election theories his show had pushed. Fox received a second letter from Dominion Voting Systems, ordering them to preserve documentation ahead of legal action.

Sidney Powell
A November 19, 2020 photo shows Sidney Powell speaking during a press conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, DC. - US President Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis reportedly said that Powell is not a member of the Trump legal team. MANDEL NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images

Consequences for Powell and Giuliani didn’t stop with the loss of their platform: Powell faces a $1.3 billion lawsuit from Dominion for her “demonstrably false” accusations and has been largely abandoned by her former allies after her typo-ridden “kraken” failed to impact election results.

Giuliani fared slightly better until recently, making appearances and speeches at Trump rallies. In the wake of Trump’s most recent impeachment, however, Trump has ordered that Giuliani’s legal fees not be paid, CNN reports.

Having traded in much of his credibility and facing disbarment, Giuliani may not even be compensated as he joins the wide ranks of workers Trump has refused to pay.

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